I’ll Have Murder With Fries

PJM Faceoff: It's nobody's business if Amy Alkon decides to order a cheeseburger. And none of their concern if she has an abortion. "There's no definitive answer on whether it's right or wrong to eat meat or on when a fertilized egg becomes a person. There's only my opinion and your opinion."
[For an opposing viewpoint, read 'Unborn Activists?' by Julia Gorin]

Is abortion murder? Is eating a cheeseburger? I approach the first question the same way I approached a question in my syndicated advice column from a meat-eating woman whose vegetarian boyfriend was becoming increasingly abusive about her choice of entree. In her words, “When we eat out, and I mention that my food smells wonderful, he launches into a tirade about how I’ve made an animal suffer a horrendous death because of my eating habits.” Mmm…genteel! (Why are the “be kind to animals” types so often such jerks to other humans?)

Personally, my preferred habitat for a cow is on a bun on my plate. That said, I buy free-range meat, and believe animals should be raised and killed humanely. I also believe animals are lesser creatures than humans, and do not deserve the same rights, as rights come with responsibilities. We don’t, for example, hold a hyena responsible for eating a gazelle — we can’t.

I apply the same thinking to the abortion issue. While a clump of cells or even a large gathering of them that resembles a baby can become a person, they don’t constitute a full-fledged human being deserving of rights.

It’s possible you think differently. Well, as I wrote to the carnivore with the bunny-hugger boyfriend, “Your boyfriend’s entitled to his beliefs, and you’re entitled to yours.”

Don’t bother accusing me of “moral relativism.” I’ll admit to it freely, and you should, too — because there’s no definitive answer on whether it’s right or wrong to eat meat or on when a fertilized egg becomes a person. There’s only my opinion and your opinion, and the opinions that shaped them.

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As an atheist who lives an evidence- and reason-based life, I turn to science for guidance. Michael S. Gazzaniga, a cognitive neuroscientist who served on President Bush’s Council On Bioethics, explains that a potential person is not a person. In The Ethical Brain, he gives an analogy comparing embryos created for stem cell research to a Home Depot. “You don’t walk into a Home Depot and see thirty houses. You see materials…to create a house.” Likewise, “a fertilized embryo is not a human,” and to give it such status is “patently absurd. When a Home Depot burns down, the headline in the paper is not ’30 Houses Burn Down.’ It is ‘Home Depot Burned Down.’”

What does religion say about abortion? Well, which religion? Different religions, and even different factions within religions, have different doctrines. According to Susan Weidman Schneider, author of Jewish and Female, Jews believe the fetus becomes a person when the head emerges from the womb. Additionally, Schneider notes, in Judaism, “the life of the fetus does not take precedence over the life of the woman,” which is “the opposite of the Catholic belief that the fetus is alive and must be delivered even if the mother’s life is forfeited.” So, Catholics are not really pro-life, but pro-one-life-over-another?

Reform Jews support aborting when amniocentesis is positive for the deadly genetic disease Tay Sachs. Orthodox Judaism generally prohibit it — even though a baby will be brought into the world only to endure a few years of terrible suffering, and then death. The same goes for another inherited disorder, Gaucher disease. In an LA Timesarticle taking a dim view of abortion, staff writer Karen Kaplan breezily deems this disease “treatable” — which it is…for a price, with biweekly enzyme infusions that cost $100,000 to $400,000 a year.

And you wonder why your health insurance costs so much? (I’m guessing Gaucher-positive-testing parents who choose to gamble and bring kids into the world aren’t all among the private jet/multimillionaire set.) It’s great to have principles, but I’m reminded of a Spanish proverb the therapist Nathaniel Branden once quoted to me: “Take what you need, but pay for it.”

That’s essentially the advice I gave one of the angry sprout-munchers who wrote to chastise me for eating meat. He mentioned his wish to start some great big nature preserve for all the dinner animals out there; apparently, to have the cows roam free, frolicking in the tall grasses (do cows frolic?) until they fall over and die a natural death. What was stopping him? Money. Not surprisingly, he was willing to huff and puff in support of his beliefs, but not-so-willing to pony up cold, hard cash.

That’s the approach I suggest for the anti-abortion crowd. Don’t want women to have abortions? Pay them to have the babies. Pay for the care of the babies after they’re born — and don’t forget the college educations.

And keep funding programs to show people why your point of view is right and mine is wrong. I celebrate your right to speak your point of view. I am, however, completely opposed to your attempts to force your point of view on me.

Once again, the solution here parallels the only fair resolution to the meat is/isn’t murder argument: Go ahead and have your Tofurky, but without cramming it down my throat, too.

Amy Alkon’s syndicated advice column, “The Advice Goddess,” runs in over 100 papers across the US and Canada. She blogs daily at AdviceGoddess.com

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23 Comments, 23 Threads

1.
steve

A home depot is a cute analogy. But would the lumber and hardware self-assemble into a house? The only difference between an embryo and a person is time.

Just a thought experiment, really, but why does your evidence- and reason-based thought process necessarily draw a distinction once the child is delivered? Or does it? Could you make the same argument that you make above in support of infanticide? If someone’s “opinion” was that infanticide wasn’t murder, would that matter to you?

I like Amy Alkon because her heart is removed from these political questions about the same distance as is my own. On the question of meat: give it up vegetarians, no one is buying your emotionally ludicrous/pathetic identification with animals – they don’t give a —- about you and you don’t give a —- about them. Your only interest is in moral superiority, just another expression of your inherently passive-aggressive personality, but you don’t even have the courage to eat a mindless, soulless cow. Shut up.

On abortion, I confess that I really don’t care. What I do care about is that such a topic which has so little impact on national welfare – let’s be honest: 1 million abortions or 1 million new urchins in a country of 300 million people with a certain net influx of immigrants every year renders the question for national health moot – has such a warping effect on the national political debate. It is here that I become interested and have an opinion.

And my opinion is this. Whatever side of the fence you’re on, the fundamental fact is that an abortion is the conscious termination of A Pregnancy. That’s what the terrified girl thinks it is; that’s what the doctor thinks it is. So, inexorably, that is what an abortion is, whatever else it is.

I personally think pregnancies are special aspects of the human animal. I am not a religious person (mostly because I am lazy, I must admit) so I cannot regard pregnancy as “sacred,” but whatever highest regard I may give something, I certainly give it to pregnancies. Call me an authoritarian paternalistic bastard if you must, but I think pregnant ladies are special – because of the babies.

Moreover, it is clear from any NOW rally that the purpose of the pro-choice advocates is to make abortion available as a means of contraception, so that if all other birth control methods provided by science and the Griswold decision should fail to prevent a pregnancy, the girl or woman may still have it terminated. There’s no use in arguing with this description: I’ve been to the rallies, I know many women and men on that side, I read and I listen. This is what it is.

Fine.

So as a matter of pragmatism, the question is not “when does an embryo become a life?” but: shall we have a public culture that errs on the side of having the children and fostering personal responsability, or shall we have a public culture that promotes the termination of pregnancy when it is inconvenient? Keep in mind that even the majority opinion in Roe v Wade points out that there has never been and never will be a (valid) American abortion law that denies abortions to mothers where the pregnancy threatens the mother’s own health. Look it up if you don’t believe me.

In my view the answer to the above question, in view of all the other scientific and cultural appliances provided to prevent pregnancy in the first place, can only be that we should err toward the life of the child and the avowal of personal responsability.

Very socially inconvenient for me to hold such a view, but there it is. I must be honest with myself first.

But I don’t understand how reason could possibly counsel any other perspective, unless by “reason” you mean “instrumental reason,” in which case you have removed the question from the realm of morality to the realm of technology. You have in fact determined that the question is subordinate to and must conform with a prior, higher determination: that you shall not be inconvenienced where a technology exists to mitigate that inconvenience.

Faced with the question of which is a greater expression of cultural health, do you really think this latter position is the more cogent?

Well pardon me if I don’t want to live in your baby-killing machine world, Commarad Frau Alkon.

Our society does not hold funerals for miscarried fetuses. It’s a sad event (usually) to be sure, but fetuses are not treated by our society the same as born babies.

A decision to terminate a pregnancy should be up to the pregnant woman, not the state, not her neighbor, not her friend, not even the father. That last part? Not fair, but we don’t live in perfect world, and neither would it be fair for a father to force a woman to birth a child.

I suppose that comparing the violent destruction of the human embryo with eating a cheeseburger may seem brilliantly rational for a religious atheist. After all, under that “scientific” belief system, we all are not much more than an accidental, random, conglomerated, jiggly goop of calcium, a little copper, zinc and magnesium with mostly water. Slicing and dicing a beating heart out of a womb? PFFFT! Wasda big deal? Now, where’s my self-esteem therapist? I need some more self-esteem. I am not feeling particularly well today for some reason.

There is sense in this editorial. One who is too lazy to be religious is on the other hand perfectly energetic enough to form a balanced, knowledgable, and complete argument about something as complex as the ramifications of abortion. Did this same laziness lead to an error in the moral equation between groung beef and human being. Did this same energy deficit lead to the equating of an unformed and lifeless house to a human in the womb. Let’s not our lazy mind skip the steps that lead to clear thinking. Yes, there are many ways to look at and argue over a subject and we have the right to prefer one of any of these but a government aught not give equal credence to inconsistent thinking, a result of laziness, as to well formulated ideas. A fetus is neither analogous to a Home Depot or a cow while my son’s hand is simply a younger version of my own.

Science does tell you what constitutes a human life. It is anyone who is a member of the species homo sapien, a subspecies of the same, or an offshoot branch of homo sapien. You want a case for genetics? How about this?

To me, aside from spiritual worth, a retarded person is actually worth far less than a fetus. A retarded person is, objectively speaking, generally completely useless to society and a net drain. Yet if we talked about terminating someone who is so mentally retarded that their very sentience is in question, I bet you would be up in arms.

The very problem with your statement, Amy is when you say “to me.” “To me” is not an effective basis to build any standard on what constitutes a fundamental, guiding legal principle. “To another” a person who is born very defective may not be a person either, as they cannot effectively live like a normal human being.

And who are you to say that they are wrong? “To me” is an appeal to your own opinion, not to something that would transcend it.

My definition of human life was arrived at because I realized that the only way to effectively arrive at a philosophical point where no one can weasel their way into justifying the taking of innocent life is to say “if it belongs to the species homo sapien, it is human and thus has all of the potential rights accorded to a human being.” You cannot get more sweeping than that when it comes to defending life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness because that covers everyone from the healthy fetus, to the star athlete, to the genius, to the retard, to the elderly person who lives but by the power of modern medicine. It is a universal, inviolable principle on what human life is.

You may scoff at the importance of that, but some of the European nations that are farther along than the US on the road to legalized euthanasia are already having problems with euthanasia that is, shall we say, a bit too coercive to be called “voluntary.” Society needs a secular principle to bridge the gap between secular citizens and religious citizens, that allows, nay, mandates!, that human life be accorded a special place in our legal system. We need that in place so that regardless of how religious society is or isn’t, there is a fundamental principle that makes people furiously, even violently, outraged when human life is cheapened or taken based on dubious principles.

My opinion is that the post-partum fetus (aka “clump of cells”) becomes a person when it starts to talk. Any creature that can’t talk is obviously not a person and can be euthenized, much as we “put away” kittens, puppies, and lame horses.

I’ll support your right to kill non-people (by your definition) if you’ll support my right to kill non-people (by my definition).

In response to Susan Weidman Schneider, author of Jewish and Female, Catholics do NOT believe that “the fetus is alive and must be delivered even if the mother’s life is forfeited.” Ms. Schneider is wrong in her understanding of Catholic doctrine and teaching.

The following is taken directly from the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2271 Since the first century the Church has affirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion.
This teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable.
Direct abortion, that is to say, abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law:

So, by your logic, it would be O.k. for a woman to abort 1hr before delivery? Or even 5 mins? She’s in labor, can’t take it and instead of a c-section she can decide, “Ohh too hell with, just pull it out and cut it’s throat.”?

I doubt you’d think that was O.K. So, let’s assume you decide that it is some place inbetween birth and conception. When? To that there is no definitive answer. So, the only logical place to start “human rights” is when we have unique human DNA.

There is a definitive answer – at conception. Because there is no other benchmark that is not arbitrary, there is no other benchmark that makes more sense.

What is a fertilized egg? The very question screams out the answer. The change before and after fertilization is greater than any other developmental change, from two sex cells that would otherwise soon die to a new life with its own unique genome. Fertilization is the obvious beginning of human life. This is not opinion, this is objective fact.

A fertilized egg is a living, individual human life. There is no reason, other than the convenience of adults, to claim otherwise.

If the pro-choicers want to silence the pro-lifers, they merely have to give up abortion on demand. 80-90% of us object to using abortion as a form of contraception. We could accept abortion in rare cases (rape, incest, mother’s life is at stake, etc.).

With all the forms of contraception available today (as well as “morning after” pills) and years-long waiting lists at adoption agencies, abortion as contraception just doesn’t make sense. Women need to exercise personal responsibility and when pregnancy occurs anyway, there are people who will take that baby.

Gazzaniga’s illustration misses the mark. Home Depot would be the sperm and egg cell. After fertilization all the parts are there that are necessary for future development. Otherwise, the Home Depot illustration could as easily lead to the conclusion that infants are not human. And, as usual, he neglects to specify a better (less absurd?) benchmark than fertilization.

If you deny that a fertilized egg is human, you must explain what those non-human cells are that otherwise appear human, what benchmark they must achieve to become human, and why that particular benchmark was chosen over a dozen equally arbitrary benchmarks.

Youth is a normal human condition. We know all about it. How is it that otherwise rational people deny it?

“…there’s no definitive answer on whether it’s right or wrong to eat meat or on when a fertilized egg becomes a person.”

There is also no cause to even compare the two. If you believe killing your child in the womb is ok, you are entitled to think and do so. If you think killing cows for food is ok, you are entitled to think and do so.

But when you act like moral relativism is no big deal because it’s merely opinion, you fall into the quicksand that much of the left is forced to tred water in. There is no comparison between killing a baby in the oven and killing a cow.

Your friend Mr Gazzaniga makes a flawed analogy. Have you ever heard of a tragedy where a pregnant woman dies? Why do you think they mention that she is pregnant? It’s because two people died.

I’m not against abortion, as long as people don’t gloss over what they are doing, as you appear to be attempting. The Home Depot analogy is also flawed. It’s more like saying, “I’m going to build a house, and all the supplies are on location” and then changing your mind and saying, “Destroy all of those supplies please. This lot will remain empty.”